D&D 5E (2024) The Undead Army Necromancer is not Designable

[Micah Sweet]

I went back and re-read the OP and there isn't any mention of profit making in the post. It's a call to simplify and shorten the length of a necromancers combat turns.

A complex 25 skeleton wielding high level necromancer isn't undoable....it just might be incompatible with the direction that DnD is moving in.

This doesn't mean that it can't be done at all ...much less in a fair manner. Inam currently playing a Necromancer in Frosthaven and can have as many as 7 summoned undead in the board alongside my character, each getting full turns.

Because the summoned undead use an AI for their turns I am able to very quickly parse through each of their turns and take my own all without disrupting the flow of the game or taking inordinately long to do so. It can, indeed, be done.

Yeah, I don't recall "published product" being central to the thread.

 

[Minigiant]

I see the horde as a high-level thing utilizing sub-necromancers.

I suggested that. Some people in this thread disagreed.

I went back and re-read the OP and there isn't any mention of profit making in the post. It's a call to simplify and shorten the length of a necromancers combat turns

The OP states fans moaning the UA not letting Necromancers create 4-20 undeads as fast.

Well the UA is from WOTC.
WOTC is creating their Necromancer subclass for profit.

A discussion about design where the accepted solutions is not about balance or the social contract is a discussion about speculation of a designer's ability design when trying to gain profit, fame, recognition, or some other external benefit

Because if the solution is "Just ask your DM to triple your undead summons and promise to not be a jerk" there is no discussion to be had.

 

[James Gasik]

While it may not be a great idea to create options that give one player infinite minions, that doesn't stop game designers from doing so. I mean, simulacrum exists, and there's no cap, sane or otherwise, for how many minions you could create, beyond how much money you have to work with at 13th level.

That having been said, I'd much prefer the game designers do the job of balancing the game for me, rather than make a bunch of potentially problematic things that I then have to figure out how to rebalance or just ban.

I'm not the professional designer, after all. If I want to break something given to me because I don't see a problem with it, I still have the option to do so (like my hatred for the attunement mechanic for magic items).

 

[ECMO3]

While it may not be a great idea to create options that give one player infinite minions, that doesn't stop game designers from doing so. I mean, simulacrum exists, and there's no cap, sane or otherwise, for how many minions you could create, beyond how much money you have to work with at 13th level.

That having been said, I'd much prefer the game designers do the job of balancing the game for me, rather than make a bunch of potentially problematic things that I then have to figure out how to rebalance or just ban.

I'm not the professional designer, after all. If I want to break something given to me because I don't see a problem with it, I still have the option to do so (like my hatred for the attunement mechanic for magic items).

The last thing I want is game designers worrying about balance. They need to worry about fun. If it is fun for players in the game, it should stay in the game.

 

[James Gasik]

The last thing I want is game designers worrying about balance. They need to worry about fun. If it is fun for players in the game, it should stay in the game.

There is, however, a vast amount of DM's who complain about unbalanced things in the game. A lot of complaints about the balance fixes that weren't made for 2024. Even before, you heard (and still hear) a lot of complaints about Feats, Multiclassing, overpowered spells, and more.

So what are we to say to these people? Too bad, game should be fun, the developers have no requirements to balance things? And you can't define "fun"- what's fun for one person is not fun for another, especially when it comes to finding out that your choices in making your character are simply subpar because you chose the wrong race, the wrong class, the wrong subclass, the wrong ASI or feat choices.

Obviously nothing is ever going to be 1:1, but we shouldn't go back to say, 3.5, where the Druid's animal companion was comparable to a Fighter, especially with the powerful beast-only buffs a Druid could apply to it. It may have been fun to be a Bear riding a Bear, shooting Bears, or to play a Planar Shepherd, or to be a Persistent Spell-buffed Cleric who is better than any melee character who has ever existed (save, perhaps, possibly an Ubercharger with Pounce). But it isn't fun for the people who did not choose to play such characters.

And to put all the onus on the DM to figure out, nerf, and ban things that imbalance their games, when again, they are not the professionals who get paid to make such things, is a little unfair. It's asking a lot for all players to be responsible with their character choices, when they may have no idea that they've lucked out and chose the better options, and for every DM to have the experience and judgment to foresee these problems and deal with them beforehand.

How fun is it for a player to build the character they want, only for the DM to nerf them or ban their choices, because it was more than they could handle? And how many DM's really understand what's more than they could handle?

I've played at tables where the DM swore Rogues were overpowered. And who can forget Monkday, when a random person will start a thread expounding the brokenness of Monks, who dodge all the attacks, stun all the things, and are unstoppable at their tables, when so many people have examined the class and found it lacking edition after edition (until, well, now, by all accounts).

To say "WotC should make undead armies possible because that's fun for...well, players who want undead armies" and put it on the DM to say "hahaha, no, not at my table" seems irresponsible on the part of a game designer. And if something gets the reputation for being too good, and it ends up being nerfed or banned at a notable percentage of tables, what good is it, really?

Look at how many people griped about things like the Twilight Cleric, and refused to use it. And how hard is it, if you don't care about balance, to just say, as a DM "animate dead lets you have 12 skeleton warriors, all under your control simultaneously, lasting until they die. Or you lose control and they turn on you, bwahahaha!"

The only thing you can say is "well, not enough DM's would make that choice". Which I think makes my point for me. An option that is only allowed by a few is a waste of space.

All that having been said, I don't see WotC as paragons of balance. That hasn't been their goal with 5e. There's a lot of things that are imbalanced (mostly spells). I despise how they turned magic items from something everyone could expect to find as rewards, to something that DM's are afraid to even put in their game for fear it would destroy things. And worse, forced you to pick and choose between cool, interesting items and stuff that directly increases your power in a wide variety of situations because you can only attune to three items at once.

If they've balanced anything, it sometimes feels like it's by accident. I've long called them the Bethesda of TTRPG's. They put out a broken product, expecting their fans to fix it for them! And somehow, they make money this way! It's a travesty, really.

An experienced DM can make their own rules, their own game, they can mod their own systems. Why on Earth they pay WotC for the privilege of spending all that effort modding their game to make it playable is completely insane.

Anyways, we all know their goal is not to make the best game for anyone. But to keep a large enough percentage of their players happy so they can keep selling their oatmeal that you can flavor for taste, and maybe with enough fruit and brown sugar you can pretend it's not just warm soggy oats.

But given my druthers, I would prefer a game that doesn't come pre-broken, with the option to break it, than one that I may very well be forced to fix, when I'm not being paid to do so.

I mean, when you shell out 50 bucks or more for a damn book, it'd be nice if it wasn't "uh, so, here's busted power creep, use it or don't. Fix it or ban it. We can't be bothered to even explain why we thought this was OK compared to other options".

 

[Minigiant]

The last thing I want is game designers worrying about balance. They need to worry about fun. If it is fun for players in the game, it should stay in the game.

Isnt the premise of this discussion is that the fun for Undead Army Necromancer usually comes at the expense of the fun of other players at the table and that's why few to no for-profit game game designers support that style of play in their games that they sell?

And that the fans of the Undead Army Necromancer must choose something to sacrifice in order to get the other players to sign up for a UAN.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Are you saying that Prestige class shouldn't exist in the game?

No, they didn't say anything about prestige classes (although there is obviously no place for them in KISS 5e).

They are saying that any class design that makes things not fun for the other players shouldn't exist. Obviously, mistakes get made. The Twilight cleric is a recent example of this kind of mistake. It wasn't just that it was overpowered, it was that it got to roll the dice on everyone else's turn as well as its own, and thus continually stole the spotlight.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is, however, a vast amount of DM's who complain about unbalanced things in the game. A lot of complaints about the balance fixes that weren't made for 2024. Even before, you heard (and still hear) a lot of complaints about Feats, Multiclassing, overpowered spells, and more.

So what are we to say to these people? Too bad, game should be fun, the developers have no requirements to balance things? And you can't define "fun"- what's fun for one person is not fun for another, especially when it comes to finding out that your choices in making your character are simply subpar because you chose the wrong race, the wrong class, the wrong subclass, the wrong ASI or feat choices.

Obviously nothing is ever going to be 1:1, but we shouldn't go back to say, 3.5, where the Druid's animal companion was comparable to a Fighter, especially with the powerful beast-only buffs a Druid could apply to it. It may have been fun to be a Bear riding a Bear, shooting Bears, or to play a Planar Shepherd, or to be a Persistent Spell-buffed Cleric who is better than any melee character who has ever existed (save, perhaps, possibly an Ubercharger with Pounce). But it isn't fun for the people who did not choose to play such characters.

And to put all the onus on the DM to figure out, nerf, and ban things that imbalance their games, when again, they are not the professionals who get paid to make such things, is a little unfair. It's asking a lot for all players to be responsible with their character choices, when they may have no idea that they've lucked out and chose the better options, and for every DM to have the experience and judgment to foresee these problems and deal with them beforehand.

How fun is it for a player to build the character they want, only for the DM to nerf them or ban their choices, because it was more than they could handle? And how many DM's really understand what's more than they could handle?

I've played at tables where the DM swore Rogues were overpowered. And who can forget Monkday, when a random person will start a thread expounding the brokenness of Monks, who dodge all the attacks, stun all the things, and are unstoppable at their tables, when so many people have examined the class and found it lacking edition after edition (until, well, now, by all accounts).

To say "WotC should make undead armies possible because that's fun for...well, players who want undead armies" and put it on the DM to say "hahaha, no, not at my table" seems irresponsible on the part of a game designer. And if something gets the reputation for being too good, and it ends up being nerfed or banned at a notable percentage of tables, what good is it, really?

Look at how many people griped about things like the Twilight Cleric, and refused to use it. And how hard is it, if you don't care about balance, to just say, as a DM "animate dead lets you have 12 skeleton warriors, all under your control simultaneously, lasting until they die. Or you lose control and they turn on you, bwahahaha!"

The only thing you can say is "well, not enough DM's would make that choice". Which I think makes my point for me. An option that is only allowed by a few is a waste of space.

All that having been said, I don't see WotC as paragons of balance. That hasn't been their goal with 5e. There's a lot of things that are imbalanced (mostly spells). I despise how they turned magic items from something everyone could expect to find as rewards, to something that DM's are afraid to even put in their game for fear it would destroy things. And worse, forced you to pick and choose between cool, interesting items and stuff that directly increases your power in a wide variety of situations because you can only attune to three items at once.

If they've balanced anything, it sometimes feels like it's by accident. I've long called them the Bethesda of TTRPG's. They put out a broken product, expecting their fans to fix it for them! And somehow, they make money this way! It's a travesty, really.

An experienced DM can make their own rules, their own game, they can mod their own systems. Why on Earth they pay WotC for the privilege of spending all that effort modding their game to make it playable is completely insane.

Anyways, we all know their goal is not to make the best game for anyone. But to keep a large enough percentage of their players happy so they can keep selling their oatmeal that you can flavor for taste, and maybe with enough fruit and brown sugar you can pretend it's not just warm soggy oats.

But given my druthers, I would prefer a game that doesn't come pre-broken, with the option to break it, than one that I may very well be forced to fix, when I'm not being paid to do so.

I mean, when you shell out 50 bucks or more for a damn book, it'd be nice if it wasn't "uh, so, here's busted power creep, use it or don't. Fix it or ban it. We can't be bothered to even explain why we thought this was OK compared to other options".

I'm with you on buying stuff you think is good. That's why I stopped giving WotC money. They stopped making products I wanted. When I buy an RPG book, it's because it has stuff in it I can use, and is close enough to my preferences that I don't feel I need to make a lot of changes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isnt the premise of this discussion is that the fun for Undead Army Necromancer usually comes at the expense of the fun of other players at the table and that's why few to no for-profit game game designers support that style of play in their games that they sell?

And that the fans of the Undead Army Necromancer must choose something to sacrifice in order to get the other players to sign up for a UAN.

It's not a premise I hold to. Sounds like something cooked up by folks who don't like necromancers.

Unless you're saying we're all supposed to agree with the OP? That doesn't seem right.

 

[Minigiant]

They are saying that any class design that makes things not fun for the other players shouldn't exist. Obviously, mistakes get made. The Twilight cleric is a recent example of this kind of mistake. It wasn't just that it was overpowered, it was that it got to roll the dice on everyone else's turn as well as its own, and thus continually stole the spotlight.

And more importantly when they know a class design that makes things not fun for the other players, they should change or not attempt it if given the chance.

For example, WOTC became aware that the Conjure spells both allowed player access to cheesy monster abilities and increase their action economy beyond what most tables find acceptable. So when given the change, they changed it.

And also that's why many UA/2024 reprints were nerfed.